


i router, you giles

by The_Eclectic_Bookworm



Series: nowhere else i'd rather be [1]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Genre: BOOM! Buffy the Vampire Slayer Comics, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-28
Updated: 2019-02-28
Packaged: 2019-11-06 20:06:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,111
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17946260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Eclectic_Bookworm/pseuds/The_Eclectic_Bookworm
Summary: “Wifi,” said the dark-haired woman, holding a small tech-looking box out in front of her like it was some sort of birthday present. “Got any?”In which Giles meets the new computer science teacher, Jenny is unapologetically combative, and Willow does her best to set them both straight. (It doesn't work.)





	i router, you giles

**Author's Note:**

> doesn’t actually require any knowledge of the 2019 reboot--just that this is giles and jenny’s first meeting, now with modern tech thrown into the mix.

“Wifi,” said the dark-haired woman, holding a small tech-looking box out in front of her like it was some sort of birthday present. “Got any?”

Giles missed the British Museum, where his request for a lock on his door had been processed and accepted. “The library’s closed,” he said, in the annoyed-academic voice that generally got most of the children in this school to leave immediately. “If you could perhaps come back later—”

“Oh, no, this is totally a necessity,” said the woman, breezing past Giles as though the word _closed_ wasn’t in her vocabulary. “See, the principal’s under the impression that this—” she blinked, squinting around in the dim light, “—musty old cave of antiquities is lacking a basic Internet connection, so I figured, hey, why not be a good neighbor—”

“Neighbor?”

“I’m in the classroom across from yours,” said the woman, giving Giles a small, bewildered frown. “I see you all the time. Are you telling me you’ve never noticed me?”

“I’m a bit _busy,_ ” said Giles, gesturing around at the books he had been shelving, “and I do not _appreciate_ my work being interrupted.”

“Well, aren’t you just a laugh and a half,” said the woman, looking— _amused?_ Giles was insinuating that he didn’t want her there, and she thought it was _funny?_ “Anyway, you being a stuck-up snob totally isn’t the point right now—”

“I  _beg_ your pardon?”

“—my _point,_ ” said the woman, verging on impatience, “is that I brought you a wifi router. In this day and age, an actual internet connection is a total necessity.”

“Yes, we wouldn’t want people to unplug themselves from their smartphones and actually read a book, now, would we?” said Giles waspishly. “Forgive me, Ms—whatever your name is, but I’m afraid I cannot condone adding a potential distraction to a place of studying. Please leave.” With a wince, he realized that this wasn’t very decorous of him. “I appreciate the offer,” he tacked on somewhat unconvincingly.

“You  _so_ don’t,” said the woman. Her eyes were narrowed. “And for the record, computers aren’t a _distraction._ They’re a _tool._ Have you ever _used_ one, or do you just cast aspersions on anyone who does?”

“Oh, absolutely the second one,” said Giles, pulling out his flip phone for emphasis. “I see no need to muddle my mind with poorly sourced information and exorbitant amounts of social media.”

“Oh my _god,_ ” said the woman disbelievingly, “have I somehow stepped back into the nineties?”

“There were computers around then,” Giles began smugly.

“The  _1890s,_ Rupert,” said the woman, giving him an extremely attractive grin. Giles very hastily replaced the revealing adjectives with _annoyingly smug_ and glared back. “You know, you can rot your brain from academic elitism just as fast as you can from—ahem—” She cleared her throat, then said in a horrible British accent, “ _exorbitant amounts of social media?”_

“I don’t sound like that,” said Giles indignantly. Then, “And my name is Mr. _Giles,_ thank you—”

“I’ll cut you a deal,” said the woman. “I’ll call you Mr. Giles if you let me install wifi in your library.”

“Absolutely  _not!”_ said Giles immediately, infuriated. “How _dare_ you blackmail me with informalities!”

“Well, how dare _you_ insult me and my chosen profession!”

“ _You_ came into this library when there was a clearly marked CLOSED sign on the door—”

“I was trying to be friendly!”

“ _BY BRINGING IN THE INTERNET?”_

“Okay,  _what_ is going on?” came Buffy’s voice.

Giles turned. Buffy, Willow, and Xander were standing in the open doorway, all of them watching the spectacle with expressions that suggested they’d been here for longer than he would have liked them to be. “She was attempting to install better Internet in the library,” he said, “and I told her that I wasn’t having any such nonsense.”

“Wait, the Internet is nonsense now?” said Willow, frowning.

“Rupert here thinks that everyone uses good wifi for flash games, dating sites, and Instagram,” said the woman, patting Giles on the shoulder. He jumped away and knocked over two stacks of books. “And I attempted to inform him that actually, the Internet is used for a lot of things when you’re not a dinosaur.”

Buffy looked extremely happy. Xander looked like he was trying not to laugh. Willow’s frown had deepened. “Well, Giles _isn’t_ a dinosaur, Ms. Calendar,” she said, “and I don’t think it’s very mature of _either_ of you to be acting like this. You two are my favorite teachers.”

“ _Her?”_ said Giles.

“ _Him?”_ said Ms. Calendar.

“Work it out,” said Willow, and led a beaming Buffy and a giggling Xander out of the library.

Giles considered this turn of events. Awkwardly, he said, “I—suppose I was a bit abrasive, initially. If Willow likes you, you can’t be as intolerable as you initially seemed.”

“Way to apologize,” said Ms. Calendar, looking completely unimpressed.

Giles snorted. “Am I supposed to _grovel_ for reacting poorly to you forcing your way into my library?”

Ms. Calendar tilted her head, glaring at him. “You _do_ know that the reason a school library needs Internet is for things like online research papers and collaborative study groups?” she said.. “A lot of the work that these teachers assign is done almost entirely online, and a lot of students are going to turn to the library for a good place to study between classes. The least you can do is make the library more accessible for the kids who _are_ going to be using the Internet responsibly.”

“Or,” said Giles, refusing to feel guilty, “the least I can do is make the library more accessible for the children who want to come in here and _read books,_ undisturbed by YouTube videos and, and,  _Myspace._ ”

“Have you ever touched a computer, or have you just read a lot of instruction manuals from 2009?” said Ms. Calendar.

Giles didn’t want to answer that.

“ _Anyway,_ ” said Ms. Calendar. “I do not accept your apology, I think you’re a total asshole, and at some point, when you aren’t paying attention, I am going to sneak back in here and put the wifi router somewhere you will never find it. Kudos!” She patted Giles on the shoulder again (she had graceful fingers with sparkly, painted nails, _not_ that Giles noticed) and headed out of the library without a backwards glance.

“I hate her very much,” said Giles to the books. It didn’t sound all that convincing.

* * *

 

The wifi router turned up seventeen times within the next two days, regardless of his attempts to remove it from the library. Giles had _no_ idea how she was doing it, and strongly suspected that the children were helping her out.


End file.
